“Wolves,” I answered.
“Yes--first time I see 'em up here--they be follerin' the
deers--bad--bad. No can trap 'em--verrie smart.”
A half-dozen wolves had chased a deer into the water; but wolves do not
take to the water, so they had stopped and drank, and then gone
rollicking-together up the beach. There were cubs, and one great track
as big as a mastiff might make.
“See that--moose track--he go by yesterday;” and Jimmie pointed to
enormous footprints in the muck of a marshy place. “Verrie big moose--we
make call at next camp--think it is early for call.”
At the next camp Jimmie made the usual birch-bark moose-call, and at
evening blew it, as he also did on the following morning. This camp was
a divine spot on a rise back of a long sandy beach, and we concluded to
stop for a day. The Norseman and I each took a man in our canoes and
started out to explore. I wanted to observe some musk-rat hotels down in
a big marsh, and the Norseman was fishing. The attorney was content to
sit on a log by the shores of the lake, smoke lazily, and watch the sun
shimmer through the lifting fog. He saw a canoe approaching from across
the lake. He gazed vacantly at it, when it grew strange and more unlike
a canoe. The paddles did not move, but the phantom craft drew quickly
on.
[Illustration: 45 A REAL CAMP]
“Say, Furguson--come here--look at that canoe.”
The Scotchman came down, with a pail in one hand, and looked.
“Canoe--hell--it's a moose--and there ain't a pocket-pistol in this
camp,” and he fairly jumped up and down.
“You don't say--you really don't say!” gasped the lawyer, who now began
to exhibit signs of insanity.
“Yes--he's going to be d----d sociable with us--he's coming right bang
into this camp.”
The Indian too came down, but he was long past talking English, and the
gutturals came up in lumps, as though he was trying to keep them down.
The moose finally struck a long point of sand and rushes about two
hundred yards away, and drew majestically out of the water, his hide
dripping, and the sun glistening on his antlers and back.
The three men gazed in spellbound admiration at the picture until the
moose was gone. When they had recovered their senses they slowly went up
to the camp on the ridge--disgusted and dum-founded.
“I could almost put a cartridge in that old gun-case and kill him,”
sighed the backwoodsman.
“I have never hunted in my life,” mused the attorney, “but few men have
seen such a sight,” and he filled his pipe.
“Hark--listen!” said the Indian. There was a faint cracking, which
presently became louder. “He's coming into camp;” and the Indian nearly
died from excitement as he grabbed a hatchet. The three unfortunate men
stepped to the back of the tents, and as big a bull moose as walks the
lonely woods came up to within one hundred and fifty feet of the camp,
and stopped, returning their gaze.
Thus they stood for what they say was a minute, but which seemed like
hours. The attorney composedly admired the unusual sight. The Indian and
Furguson swore softly but most viciously until the moose moved away. The
Indian hurled the hatchet at the retreating figure, with a final curse,
and the thing was over.
“Those fellows who are out in their canoes will be sick abed when we
tell them what's been going on in the camp this morning,” sighed Mr.
Furguson, as he scoured a cooking-pot.
I fear we would have had that moose on our consciences if we had been
there: the game law was not up at the time, but I should have asked for
strength from a higher source than my respect for law.
The golden days passed and the lake grew great.
[Illustration: 46 ROUGH WATER]
The wind blew at our backs. The waves rolled in restless surges, piling
the little canoes on their crests and swallowing them in the troughs.
The canoes thrashed the water as they flew along, half in, half out, but
they rode like ducks. The Abwees took off their hats, gripped their
double blades, made the water swirl behind them, howled in glee to each
other through the rushing storm. To be five miles from shore in a seaway
in kayaks like ours was a sensation. We found they stood it well, and
grew contented. It was the complement to the golden lazy days when the
water was glass, and the canoes rode upsidedown over its mirror surface.
The Norseman grinned and shook his head in token of his pleasure, much
as an epicure might after a sip of superior Burgundy.
“How do you fancy this?” we asked the attorney-at-law.
“I am not going to deliver an opinion until I get ashore. I would never
have believed that I would be here at my time of life, but one never
knows what a ---- fool one can make of one's self. My glasses are covered
with water, and I can hardly see, but I can't let go of this paddle to
wipe them,” shrieked the man of the office chair, in the howl of the
weather.
But we made a long journey by the aid of the wind, and grew a contempt
for it. How could one imagine the stability of those little boats until
one had tried it?
That night we put into a natural harbor and camped on a gravel beach.
The tents were up and the supper cooking, when the wind hauled and blew
furiously into our haven. The fires were scattered and the rain came in
blinding sheets. The tent-pegs pulled from the sand. We sprang to our
feet and held on to the poles, wet to the skin. It was useless; the rain
blew right under the canvas. We laid the tents on the “grub” and stepped
out into the dark. We could not be any wetter, and we did not care. To
stand in the dark in the wilderness, with nothing to eat, and a
fire-engine playing a hose on you for a couple of hours--if you have
imagination enough, you can fill in the situation. But the gods were
propitious. The wind died down. The stars came out by myriads. The fires
were relighted, and the ordinary life begun. It was late in the night
before our clothes, blankets, and tents were dry, but, like boys, we
forgot it all.
Then came a river--blue and flat like the sky above--running through
rushy banks, backed by the masses of the forest; anon the waters rushed
upon us over the rocks, and we fought, plunk-plunk-plunk, with the
paddles, until our strength gave out. We stepped out into the water, and
getting our lines, and using our long double blades as fenders,
“tracked” the canoes up through the boil. The Indians in their heavier
boats used “setting-poles” with marvellous dexterity, and by furious
exertion were able to draw steadily up the grade--though at times they
too “tracked,” and even portaged. Our largest canoe weighed two hundred
pounds, but a little voyager managed to lug it, though how I couldn't
comprehend, since his pipe-stem legs fairly bent and wobbled under the
enormous ark. None of us by this time were able to lift the loads which
we carried, but, like a Western pack-mule, we stood about and had things
piled on to us, until nothing more would stick. Some of the backwoodsmen
carry incredible masses of stuff, and their lore is full of tales which
no one could be expected to believe. Our men did not hesitate to take
two hundred and fifty pounds over short portages, which were very rough
and stony, though they all said if they slipped they expected to break a
leg. This is largely due to the tump-line, which is laid over the head,
while persons unused to it must have shoulder-straps in addition, which
are not as good, because the “breastbone,” so called, is not strong
enough.
[Illustration: 47 THE INDIANS USED 'SETTING-POLES']
We were getting day by day farther into “the beyond.” There were no
traces here of the hand of man. Only Jimmie knew the way--it was his
trapping-ground. Only once did we encounter people. We were blown into a
little board dock, on a gray day, with the waves piling up behind us,
and made a difficult landing. Here were a few tiny log houses--an
outpost of the Hudson Bay Company. We renewed our stock of provisions,
after laborious trading with the stagnated people who live in the lonely
place. There was nothing to sell us but a few of the most common
necessities; however, we needed only potatoes and sugar. This was
Jimmie's home. Here we saw his poor old mother, who was being tossed
about in the smallest of canoes as she drew her nets. Jimmie's father
had gone on a hunting expedition and had never come back. Some day
Jimmie's old mother will go out on the wild lake to tend her nets, and
she will not come back. Some time Jimmie too will not return--for this
Indian struggle with nature is appalling in its fierceness.
There was a dance at the post, which the boys attended, going by canoe
at night, and they came back early in the morning, with much giggling at
their gallantries.
The loneliness of this forest life is positively discouraging to think
about. What the long winters must be in the little cabins I cannot
imagine, and I fear the traders must be all avarice, or have none at
all; for there can certainly be absolutely no intellectual life. There
is undoubtedly work, but not one single problem concerning it. The
Indian hunters do fairly well in a financial way, though their lives are
beset with weakening hardships and constant danger. Their meagre diet
wears out their constitutions, and they are subject to disease. The
simplicity of their minds makes it very difficult to see into their life
as they try to narrate it to one who may be interested.
[Illustration: 48 TRYING MOMENTS]
From here on was through beautiful little lakes, and the voyagers rigged
blanket sails on the big canoes, while we towed behind. Then came the
river and the rapids, which we ran, darting between rocks, bumping on
sunken stones--shooting fairly out into the air, all but turning over
hundreds of times. One day the Abwees glided out in the big lake
Tesmiaquemang, and saw the steamer going to Bais des Pierres. We hailed
her, and she stopped, while the little canoes danced about in the swell
as we were loaded one by one. On the deck above us the passengers
admired a kind of boat the like of which had not before appeared in
these parts.
At Bais des Pierres we handed over the residue of the commissaries of
the Abwee-Chemun to Jimmie Friday, including personally many pairs of
well-worn golf-breeches, sweaters, rubber coats, knives which would be
proscribed by law in New York. If Jimmie ever parades his solemn
wilderness in these garbs, the owls will laugh from the trees. Our
simple forest friend laid in his winter stock--traps, flour, salt,
tobacco, and pork, a new axe--and accompanied us back down the lake
again on the steamer. She stopped in mid-stream, while Jimmie got his
bundles into his “bark” and shoved off, amid a hail of “good-byes.”
The engine palpitated, the big wheel churned the water astern, and we
drew away. Jimmie bent on his paddle with the quick body-swing habitual
to the Indian, and after a time grew a speck on the reflection of the
red sunset in Temiscamingue.
The Abwees sat sadly leaning on the after-rail, and agreed that Jimmie
was “a lovely Injun.” Jimmie had gone into the shade of the overhang of
the cliffs, when the Norseman started violently up, put his hands in his
pockets, stamped his foot, said, “By George, fellows, any D. F. would
call this a sporting trip!”
THE SOLEDAD GIRLS
“TO-NIGHT I am going down to my ranch--the Soledad--in my private car,”
said the manager of the Mexican International Railroad, “and I would
like the Captain and you to accompany me.”
The Captain and I were only too glad; so in process of time we awoke to
find our car sidetracked on the Soledad, which is in the state of
Coahuila, Mexico. The chaparral spread around, rising and falling in the
swell of the land, until it beat against the blue ridge of the Sierra
Santa Rosa, miles to the north. Here and there the bright sun spotted on
a cow as she threaded the gray stretches; a little coyote-wolf sat on
his haunches on a near-by hill-side, and howled protests at his
new-found companions; while dimly through the gray meshes of the
leaf-denuded chaparral we could see the main ranch-house of the Soledad.
We were informed at breakfast by the railroad manager that there was to
be that day a “round-up,” which is to say, a regular Buffalo Bill Show,
with real cowboys, ponies, and cattle, all three of them wild, full of
thorns, and just out of the brush.
The negro porters got out the saddles of the young women, thus
disclosing their intention to ride ponies instead of in traps. We
already knew that they were fearless horseback-riders, but when the
string of ponies which were to be our mounts was led up by a few
Mexicans, the Captain and I had our well-concealed doubts about their
being proper sort of ponies for young girls to ride. We confided in an
imperturbable cowboy--one of those dry Texans. He said: “Them are what
we would call broke ponies, and you fellers needn't get to worryin'
'bout them little girls--you're jest a-foolin' away good time.”
Nevertheless, the broncos had the lurking devil in the tails of their
eyes as they stood there tied to the wire fencing; they were humble and
dejected as only a bronco or a mule can simulate. When that ilk look
most cast down, be not deceived, gay brother; they are not like this.
Their humility is only humorous, and intended to lure you on to their
backs, where, unless you have a perfect understanding of the game, the
joke will be on you. Instantly one is mounted, the humility departs; he
plunges and starts about, or sets off like the wind, regardless of
thorny bushes, tricky ground underfoot, or the seat of the rider.
The manager's wife came out of the car with her little brood of three,
and then two visiting friends. These Soledad girls, as I call them, each
had a sunburst of yellow hair, were well bronzed by the Mexican sun, and
were sturdy little bodies. They were dressed in short skirts, with
leggings, topped with Tam o' Shanters, while about their waists were
cartridge-belts, with delicate knives and revolvers attached, and with
spurs and _quirts_ as accessories. They took up their men's saddles, for
they rode astride, except the two visitors, who were older and more
lately from Chicago. They swung their saddles on to the ponies, showing
familiarity with the _ladigo_ straps of the Texas saddles, and proudly
escaping the humiliation which alights on the head of one who in the
cow-camps cannot saddle his own “bronc.” Being ready, we mounted, and
followed a cowboy off down the road to the _rodeo-ground._ The manager
and Madam Mamma rode in a buckboard, proudly following with their gaze
the galloping ponies which bore their jewels. I thought they should be
fearful for their safety, but after more intimate inspection, I could
see how groundless was such solicitude.
I must have it understood that these little vaquero girls were not the
ordinary Texas product, fed on corn-meal and bred in the chaparral, but
the much looked after darlings of a fond mother. They are taken South
every winter, that their bodies may be made lithe and healthy, but at
the same time two or more governesses crowd their minds with French,
German, and other things with which proper young girls should be
acquainted. But their infant minds did not carry back to the days when
they had not felt a horse under them. To be sure, in the beginning it
was only a humble donkey, but even before they knew they had graduated
to ponies, and while yet ten years old, it was only by a constant watch
that they were kept off unbroken broncos--horses that made the toughest
vaqueros throw down their hats, tighten their belts, and grin with fear.
From over the hills came the half-wild cattle, stringing along at a
trot, all bearing for the open space in the waste of the chaparral where
the _rodeo_ occurred, while behind them followed the cowboys--gay desert
figures with brown, pinched faces, long hair, and shouting wild cries.
The exhilaration of the fine morning, the tramp of the thousands, got
into the curls of the three little Misses Golden-hairs, and they
scurried away, while I followed to feast on this fresh vision, where
absolutely ideal little maids shouted Spanish at murderous-looking
Mexican cow-punchers done up in bright scrapes and costumed out of all
reason. As the vaqueros dashed about hither and thither to keep their
herds moving in the appointed direction, the infants screamed in their
childish treble and spurred madly too. A bull stands at bay, but a child
dashes at him, while he turns and flees. It is not their first _rodeo,_
one can see, but I should wish they were with mamma and the buckboard,
instead of out here in the brush, charging wild bulls, though in truth
this never were written. These bulls frequently charge men, and a
cow-pony turns like a ball off a bat, and a slippery seat in the saddle
may put you under the feet of the outraged monarch of the range.
[Illustration: 49 THE HALF-WILD CATTLE CAME DOWN FROM THE HILLS]
Driving down to the _rodeo-ground,_ we all stood about on our ponies and
held the herd, as it is called, the young girls doing vaquero duty, as
imperturbable of mien as Mr. Flannagan, the foreman. So many women in
the world are afraid of a dairy cow, even gathering up their skirts and
preparing to shriek at the sight of one eating daisies. But these young
women will grow up and they will be afraid of no cow. So much for a
Soledad education.
The top-ropers rode slowly into the dust of the milling herd, scampered
madly, cast their ropes, and came jumping to us with a blatting calf
trailing at their ropes' end. Two men seized the little victim, threw
him on his back, cut a piece out of his ear with a knife, and still held
him in relentless grip while another pressed a red-hot branding-iron on
his side, which sizzled and sent up blue smoke, together with an odor of
burned flesh. The calves bawled piteously. There was no more emotion on
the faces of the Soledad girls than was shown by the brown cowboys. They
had often, very often, seen this before, and their nerves were strong.
Some day I can picture in my mind's eye these young girl vaqueros grown
to womanhood, and being such good-looking creatures, very naturally some
young man will want very badly to marry one of them--for it cannot be
otherwise. I only hope he will not be a thin-chested, cigarette-smoking
dude, because it will be a sacrilege of nature. He must undoubtedly have
played forward at Princeton or Yale, or be unworthy.
As we stood, a massive bull emerged from the body of the herd, his head
thrown high, tail stiff with anger, eye rolling, and breath coming
quick. He trotted quickly forward, and, lowering his head, charged
through the “punchers.” Instantly a small Soledad girl was after him,
the vaqueros reining back to enjoy the strange ride with their eyes. Her
hat flew off, and the long curls flapped in the rushing air as her pony
fairly sailed over the difficult ground. The bull tore furiously, but
behind him swept the pony and the child. As we watched, the chase had
gone a mile away, but little Miss Yellowcurls drew gradually to the far
side of the bull, quartering him on the far side, and whirling on,
headed her quarry back to her audience and the herd. The rough-and-ready
American range boss sat sidewise in his saddle and thought--for he never
talked unnecessarily, though appreciation was chalked all over his pose.
The manager and madam felt as though they were responsible for this
wonderful thing. The Mexican cowboys snapped their fingers and eyes at
one another, shouting quick Spanish, while the American part of the
beholders agreed that it was the “limit”; “that as a picture,” etc.;
“that the American girl, properly environed “; “that this girl in
particular,” etc., was a dream. Then the bull and the girl came home;
the bull to his fellows, and the girl to us. But she didn't have an idea
of our admiration, because we didn't tell her; that would have been
wrong, as you can imagine. Ten years will complicate little Miss
Yellowcurls. Then she could be vain about such a thing; but, alas! she
will not be--she will have forgotten.
THE END